This blog is my silo,
my storage of personal fodder for future harvesting.
A home for thoughts and ideas to ferment, grow and eventually ultimately ripen.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

the human monster...........

It was so
many years ago and yet I can see the tears flooding down his young face so vividly
in my mind. I can hear the cries releasing from his body as he heaved while
trying to speak. Slobber dripped from his lips and snot ran from his nose. He was
crying so violently that he was unable to maintain and control his fluids.

The morning before
I had worked with Harley, as I will call him, and that day seemed no different than any other.
Harley was a struggling reader and even worse in math. At age eleven, he had
not yet developed the skill to string words together to read aloud. Harley had
a diagnosed learning disability that hindered his achievement. He was a bright
boy; a sullen boy.

That morning
we had worked on blending phonemes into words. We did not have a good session
together. He was distracted and quick to
talk back. I snapped at him. In the moment that I scolded him I knew that I was
wrong, that I was unprofessional and that I could have handled the situation so
much better. Harley knew too. When I walked with him to the exit of the
building he reached the door, stopped and turned around. He looked at me and
simply stated, “Next time you want me to do something you should just ask me.
You don’t have to get upset with me.” He walked away. I was emotionally and
physically frozen. The eleven year old boy was right, and he had the maturity
to tell me. I went home that night humbled by my inexperience and my mistake. I
was embarrassed by my actions and proud of his speaking up.

The next
morning the sun rose as expected, but that was the only thing that was normal
about the day to follow. I arrived at work at 7:50 that morning. It was a
chilling November morning and I sat in my room trying to warm my hands and jump
start my brain before the bells rang across the hallways demanding
productivity. Minutes passed and Harley had not appeared at my door with his
black and purple backpack, slumped into the farthest chair and stared at the
ground. More minutes passed. Finally after 23 minutes I saw a shadow near the
door. I walked over and saw Harley standing outside of the door. He didn’t have
his backpack and he didn’t seem to have his soul. I asked him to come in. He
didn’t move. I asked again and Harley continued to stare at the linoleum
beneath him. Tears began to stream from his eyes. They fell so rapidly that it
almost appeared as if it was raining from his being.

My insides
started to quiver as I asked Harley what was wrong. He couldn’t talk. His words
were being held captive by his emotions. He looked so broken, defeated and
alone. I started to panic and asked him again what was wrong. I reached out to
put my hand on his shoulder and he pulled away from me. He continued to cry.
Slowly his hand began to move and he lifted his shirt and wails left his body
with such power that I thought he may pass out from lack of air.

It was then
that I saw. I saw the battered, bloody, bruised and burned flesh beneath his
shirt. There was not an inch of his skin that did not have new or old wounds.
Harley’s knees buckled as his secret was revealed and he began to fall forward.
I caught him in my arms. For nearly an hour he lay there in my arms sobbing as
he felt the binding of his secret loosen. His entire body shook, his voice squeaked
with exhaustion and he smelled of blood.

Harley and I
made it downstairs to a private office. I made the call to child protection
services. While we waited for them to arrive, Harley agreed to take off his
shirt and allow me to clean his wounds. His body had endured the rage of pure evil.
Flesh hung from sections of his back. Bruises old and new were at different
colors of healing. A rope like mark ran across his chest. Household objects
could be identified by the burns in his back. Welts were more than a half an
inch thick raised from his tine body. As I cautiously cleaned his wounds,
Harley continued to cry. His lip shivered, but he was quiet now. There was not
an ounce of his eleven year old structure that wasn’t utterly terrified.

A knock on
the door startled both me and Harley. A man from the child protection agency
entered the room. Harley would not look at him. The tall, strong looking man
asked Harley questions. The eleven year old broken boy again stood staring at
the floor, but this time he was violently shaking his head and tears were
launching off of his soaked face. I put my hand near his hand, he grabbed tight.
I asked the man to back up and stand near the door. He complied. I explained to
the man that it was the boy’s father that had delivered the horrors onto the
eleven year old body and soul that stood before him.

Harley left
with the child protection services worker that cold November morning and I
never saw him again. I was assured years later that Harley was safe and had
been placed with caring and loving family. Harley’s father spent three months
in jail.